Two Times Jay Helped Tim, and Two Times Tim Helped Jay
by canibeyourotp
Summary: Fragments of a life on the road. Slight Jam, but it doesn't have to be if you don't want it to. Oneshot.


**1)**

There's a sharp pain spreading through his lungs, and Tim coughs himself into conciousness. He hears footsteps, feels them vibrating the loose floorboards underneath him, and immediately cowers. Instead of the black pain he's come to know piercing past his head, however, thin fingers curl around his arms and pry them away from his face.

"I was wondering when you'd wake up… how're you feeling?"

Concern is lacing Jay's voice. Hell, concern is flashing across his eyes, Tim notes, as they finally come into focus.

He uses a few seconds to take in his surroundings. The air smells old - that musty, thick scent, that one comes to associate with old books and classic literature - and Tim notices that he's fenced in. To his right, a length of wooden panelling, and to his left, the same, except for the extra piece that juts out…

Oh. He suddenly realises it's a bench. No, not a bench… A pew. The one on the right side of him is the back of the next row.

He's sitting up against the wall, with obstacles on either side to keep him from falling over whilst unconscious, which means Jay must have strategically placed him there, right?

He can't remember. "What happened?" he asks, sounding hoarse, trying to sit up.

Jay prevents him, forcing him back into a sitting position. "I don't know," he confesses, "I haven't seen the tapes yet. All I know is that when I woke up… Well, we were in the park. But not too far in, y'know? Not by the tunnel or anything… And you were in a way worse state that I was, and it was getting dark. So I just drove us to the nearest place I could think of that might have a first aid kit without asking too many questions."

He stands up, gesturing around him. The wooden ceiling, the ancient beams, the poor lighting, the pews?

"You broke into the church," he deadpans.

Jay looks sheepish, and bites his bottom lip. "Uh… Yeah. I did."

"You broke into the _church,_" he repeats, because he still can't quite believe it.

"I didn't break any windows! There was a back door with, like, one bolt across," Jay is quick to tell him. "…And they have a kitchen."

Tim wants to laugh, really badly, but his nose seems to be clogged with blood. "Make coffee," he settles for instead. He stands up - hell to what Jay says, he needs to be moving around - and stumbles over to the first aid box that Jay points out, which holds the promise of being able to clean his bloodied face up.

**—**

**2)**

He doesn't know what happened - one moment, they're having a disagreement about the Youtube channel, and the next…

"You know, what, Jay? Call me back when you've decided on something. I'm prepared to wait around whilst you _sort out_ what you actually want to do—"

He turns on his heel, heading back to his car. Tim's shadow is four-fold under the streetlamps, and gravel crunches under his shoes as he angrily represses the last of his words.

"Tim, wait…"

"I'm going home, Jay."

"—-TIM!"

Jay's tone changes so suddenly, from annoyed to urgent and desperate, that Tim does a 180 turn. It's damn lucky he did, too, because a white hot strip suddenly grazes across his face. He can even hear it ping off of the road sign behind him, near the exit - assuming 'it' is a bullet.

The next thing he knows, Jay barrels into him, just as another shot rings out. It's a surprisingly forceful tackle, considering just how skinny and bony the guy is after years of living under paranoid stress, but they land one on top of the other. Jay's hands are splayed across Tim's chest from the collision, their legs are tangled together, and _ouch_, the other man's ribcage is a little too prominent. Pointy, almost. They scrabble over each other, Jay yanking Tim by the shirt over to cover - hiding in the shadow of the latter's car.

Resting against the doors, the two hold their breath, hoping that the darkness away from the streetlamps will be enough for a few seconds.

"You okay?" Jay murmurs.

"Fine," Tim gets out, winded.

Afterwards, they get to the nearest hotel, deeming it safer than going to Tim's, and they apologise to each other quietly. Their argument feels kind of stupid now, when they think back - they really need to stop meeting up to disagree. Compromises sound appealing as of now.

Then they make plans to go back and get Jay's car, because they both left in Tim's as quickly as possible.

**—-**

**3)**

"Well, you're awake. That's something, I guess…"

Charming.

He's lying in the back of his car; the seats are pushed back, and the boot is open. Tim's perched on the edge, the first aid pack that Jay's taken to keeping in his car on his lap, and is applying strips medical tape to a square piece of gauze. He looks like he's completely unscathed, strangely enough, because usually the rule of 'both or not at all' comes into effect (whether that's amnesia, near-serious injury, or grass-stain ruined clothing after running through the forest all night).

Jay sits up slowly. The first thing he notices is the fact that he's missing a shoe. He's also incredibly aware of the pounding in his head, and the needle-like prickling sensation in his skin; his back aches in a very noticeable way. He has hazy memories of outdoors-y sounds - falling, maybe…?

"What'd I do?" he asked, wincing. He can feel sticking plaster, which seems to be tightly holding his right eyebrow together. He touches it gingerly - it stings, a _lot_, oh god ouch.

Tim snorts. "We were investigating that hut in Rosswood, remember? The storage unit. The new clue from that insane other channel mentioned something about it." He tears off another strip of tape from the tiny dispenser. "You only took a couple steps, and the floor gave way underneath you. Fell right through - landed on this pile of packing material. You were lucky… There was a wood chipper about ten feet away…"

He looks up, smoothing the last piece of tape out onto the gauze, and gestures at Jay to move. "C'mere."

Jay shuffles forwards. It feels like there's a hundred splinters in his shins, and looks like it too, from the ugly rip in his jeans. He suddenly feels dizzy, and closes his eyes, waiting for it to pass. Cold fingertips tilt his head to one side, and the gauze is firmly applied to a graze on the side of his head. That would explain his banging headache…

"How'd you get me here?" Jay asks suddenly. He opens his eyes. The eyebrow _seriously_ hurts.

"Carried you."

"Tim, that's like… two miles out from our cars."

"Got you here, though, didn't I?"

He can't tell if Tim's annoyed with his questioning or not - if anything, Tim actually looks a little bit proud of himself - so instead of replying, he swipes the tweezers from the pack. Tim smirks, removing the tattered remains of a bloodied sock from Jay's shoeless foot, and gets to work bandaging it up. Jay starts pulling splinters.

**—-**

**4)**

He's been hunched over his laptop for about four hours now, furiously tapping away at some points, wringing his hands into his hair at other points. That doesn't look healthy in any way at all. He's not had anything to eat or drink since he woke up, and became set on the new message decryption.

So Tim brings him a glass of water and a ham sandwich.

"Hey, thanks, Tim," Jay says, surprised, stretching out his arms stiffly.

"Don't feel special, I made myself one as well."

Jay laughs a little, but his smile quickly fades. "This is driving me crazy," he explains with a pained expression. "I think it needs another separate code to figure it all out, but seeing as I don't HAVE one of those and all of my other attempts are going nowhere…"

He sighs.

Tim narrows his eyes at the screen, flicking through what Jay has. The video is another crazy - and a little disturbing - acid trip of a creation from their well known acquaintance totheark, and the stills have a lot of orange flare in them. It hurts his vision, truth be told. And there are too many forward slashes.

He casually extends a pinky finger at a particular cluster of text. "I think that's a double S, not an M there," Tim says through a mouthful of ham, before wandering off to clear up the mess he just made in his kitchen.

Jay's eyes widen. He cautiously presses a few keys, staring at the double SS, before realising his mistake and applying it to the rest of the message.

"…There's not a separate code!" he shouts, in the general direction of the kitchen.

**—-**

**And One of the Times When They Helped Each Other**

**1)**

"…Hey, I'm sorry."

"What about?"

"That we didn't find Jessica. I know she's important to you."

Jay shrugs. "We didn't find anything good, but we didn't find anything _bad_, either… Like the last two years, I guess. I dunno. It could've been way worse."

They've been led on a wild goose chase, but somehow, it doesn't matter; they've pulled over to some quiet town off the highway and parked up by a riverbank site. There's thick grass, and picnic benches, and there's a scattering of people simply enjoying the area around them. A few dog walkers are strolling about, and clusters of family groups are basking in the sunshine.

It's a nice change, to hear kids laughing, to see them running around and playing games. There aren't a lot of kids in Tim's neighbourhood.

Jay's now cleared a small fence, dashing ahead slightly - there's a slope leading down to the river, about a thirty foot stretch of grass, and a little path at the bottom running directly with the water. The skinnier man shrugged off his jacket, spread it lazily on the ground, and promptly laid down on it, putting his hands behind his head.

"Hang on a second," Tim calls out. "I'll be right back, I left something in the car."

He returns to the slope with a massive plastic bottle. Jay tilts his head up in interest, squinting from the sun's rays: "Cream soda!" he says excitedly, sitting up, "I love cream soda—"

Tim sits down next to Jay, taking one look at the big childish grin on his face, and passes him the entire bottle without a word.

Jay fumbles at the plastic lid, and a warning '_hisssss_' alerts him to—

Oh. The bottle sprays _everywhere_. Thin, powerful streams of vanilla-flavoured, carbonated liquid explode from the opening, sending jets of the stuff all over them. Too late.

Jay stares at the mess he just made in disbelief, before bursting into laughter. There's droplets of cream soda running down his face, caught in his hair, all over the jacket he laid on the floor, and Tim's escaped with a damp shirt and jeans. "How long— how long was that _in your car for_?" he chokes out between gasps of hysteria, clutching at his sides.

He looks like he's about to cry with mirth, even though the situation isn't even that funny, but Tim can't help the smile that spreads across his face as he wrestles the bottle from Jay and takes a swig. He suspects that the pent-up disappointment from not finding any leads today is coming out in Jay like this, but he's not about to spoil it. It's like taking a break from all that Marble Hornets crap, however brief.

Anyway, watching Jay be a complete moron _is_ kind of funny.

It's a nice change, to feel like a normal guy.

They're both glad that they have their friend with them.


End file.
